New Tech: IPFS

It’s not just theoretical, you can use it now. There’s a lot to be said about the benefits. Consider for example you’re downloading an image or a video, the speed at which that transfer happens, depends on that single connection. With p2p, you’re connecting to many nodes, making the process a lot faster. Also note that every file, and ever block in every file gets a cryptographic hash. This not only means that IPFS keeps track of every version of every file, this feature allows allows it to block duplication! So instead of 1000 copies of the same movie in the cloud, as soon as one person uploads the movie, everyone is splitting that same single copy. The other big feature, of every file with every version, is unlike the web we know today, no web pages or files get lost or forgotten! This should make the archivist in all of us squeal with glee.

Note, this is fully working, but alpha software. Also, this is intermediate level to use, meaning you should be comfortable in a terminal, and know how to untar a tarball. If this last sentence doesn’t make sense to you, IPFS is not for you. Perhaps instead, learn how to use the terminal. For those ready to dive in: